Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Ever find that when a day starts off badly, it just gets worse as it goes along?

It seems that the first few hours after you get out of bed seem to set the tone for the remainder of the day. If that is always the case, I should just go back to bed because today is already a complete wash.

We started off the day with my two kids missing the bus. It's the second time they have done this in three weeks. The problem is I am still trying to figure out how they do it.

I let them wait inside the house on cold mornings. All they have to do is stand in the family room and watch out the back door for the bus, which comes down the road that runs perpendicular to our street. Somehow, neither of them saw it. How you can not see a large yellow vehicle with flashing lights coming down a road, I will never know.

It probably did not help that the bus comes at 7:15 and Sean was still getting his shoes on at 7:14. They are both supposed to be ready at 7:10, and Shannon was indeed ready. She was, however, too busy messing with one of our cats to apparently notice a bus driving by.

The fact that I had to drive them to school was not what upset me. It is only about a five minute drive. What makes me angry is the lack of responsibility in not being ready on time or the ability to stay on task. To make it worse, the circumstances were similar the last time they missed the bus.

I would like to say I handled to situation in a calm and mature manner, but I probably sounded more like a howler monkey.

So the day started with me getting angry and delivering a lecture on responsibilty during the entire drive to school. This made both of them quite happy. So now no one's day is off to a great start.

What makes me feel bad is that nobody's day had to be ruined. As the kids pointed out, they have only missed the bus three times in all of the years they have been riding it. It doesn't do anyone any good to start the morning angry and upset.

I read the book "Don't Sweat The Small Stuff" by Richard Carlson several years ago. There is a chapter called "Look Beyond Behavior" that basically says you have to take into account the circumstances that might be behind people's actions. No one deserves a rough start to a tough day simply for being distracted or not moving fast enough. If it means swallowing a bit of inconvenience to maintain harmony, then so be it.

Of course my kids need to responsible enough to be ready on time for school, but that fact would sink in much better in when discussed by a calm mother rather than a raving banshee.

So I will have to put this experience in the "What NOT To Do" column and hope my kids learn a lesson about timeliness.

I could also threaten to make them walk the two miles to school next time. Then they would have an excuse to pass on that story handed down through the generations about how they were forced to walk to school. Uphill. Both ways.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Spring has sprung, and with it an event that my husband dreads every year: the awful "honey-do" list.

As I yield a pretty mean hammer and drill, I only put items on here that are absolutely impossible for me to do. I can hang a picture and even put together a storage cabinet from a kit, but adding an outlet to the kid's bathroom is something I will never attempt. Unless I feel the need to get an instant perm from the electrical shock I will inevitably give myself.

With the arrival of warm weather, however, my husband has other priorities. They are:

1) playing golf2) watching golf on tvand 3) dreaming about playing and watching golf.

As you can imagine, this causes some conflict in our household. I need a hand, and he wants to chase little white balls around with metal sticks.

Since I have made it a priority this year to work on my patience, I try to put the honey-do list in perspective. I try to remember that my husband is a hard worker and is also taking a very difficult electrical licensing class right now. Frankly, he needs a break once in awhile.

Also, if a to-do item sits on a list for awhile, so what? The world will not end if the lawn is not fertilized tomorrow.

So I will continue to smile as he heads out the door with his golf clubs, promising that he will get to the list soon. After all, patience is a virtue.

Besides, if he lets that list go for too long, I have some great hiding places for those clubs.